Is A Balloon Full Of California Sunshine ... And Hot Air
Politicians focus on feeding the fantasy of their naive voters with smoke and mirrors, illusion, delusion, and contractual, but impossible, false promises. There are already dozens of rotten fruit, Public Pension funds, falling from the evil tree of over-promised, under-funded, Public Retirement Programs. The old adage, "If it sounds too good to be true, it nearly always is", comes to mind. Many Public Pension Funds are just now poking their hairless, skinless skulls through the cemetery sod. Their bony fingers clutching a few cankered pennies of promise and their naked teeth clicking out the hope of a bailout. Another bailout? By whom? By their bankrupt, Hi Spending State or by the madly money printing Federal Government (Your and my taxes).
How is this possible, when the sky-rocket stock market has ridden the green arrow of Federal Money Printing straight up to dizzying heights ... up, up, up off the page of reality into the stratosphere of Liberal dope hope. Whose fault is it? The demon of delusion! The Unions which led the way; The Politicians who got it done; The elderly, hopeful retirees are also at fault because they joined the "Demand More" Unions and voted for the Promise Purveyor Politicians who vowed to support their Union's DEMANDS for the keys to the kingdom treasury. You can't just blame the State Governments ... they learned it from the Federal Government. But the Feds have the money printing presses ... a magic trick their greedy, offspring States do not have.
So who will fold first, Illinois, New York, Michigan, the U.S. Gov. ... or maybe California?
"CalPERS Is Near Insolvency; It Needs A Bailout Soon" - Former Board Member Makes Stunning Admission
Two weeks ago, in the aftermath of the February 5 volocaust, we quoted David Hunt, CEO of $1.2 trillion asset manager PGIM, who said ignore the volatility spike, the real financial timebomb was and remains public pensions: "if you were going to look for what’s the possible real crack in the financial architecture for the next crisis, rather than looking in the rearview mirror, pension funds would be on our list."In a brief discussion wondering what municipalities and states will do when local tax revenues decline and unemployment worsens, Hunt said "we're worried about those pension obligations.”
He is hardly alone: having reported over and over and over (and over, and over) again that public pensions are in deep trouble, two days ago none other than Steve Westly, former California controller and Calpers board member - manager of the largest public pension fund in the US, made a stunning admission, confirming everything:
"The pension crisis is inching closer by the day. CalPERS just voted to increase the amount cities must pay to the agency. Cities point to possible insolvency if payments keep rising but CalPERS is near insolvency itself. It may be reform or bailout soon."
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